Depression, how to free ourselves from this affliction and find peace of mind

When we are depressed, we perceive everything in a negative way, we feel defeated, without the intention of undertaking any activity, we do not see sense in striving to achieve something, we feel unmotivated.

On the one hand we can reflect that there is a certain wisdom in those moments, that of knowing that no matter how hard we try to get satisfactory stimuli, fame, money, power, knowledge, etc., none of these things will bring us lasting happiness, since everything we accumulate we will lose over time, besides striving is not a guarantee that we will succeed, surely we will have failures and disappointments, then why even make effort to get out of bed, and undertake new activities?

All these thoughts combined with the thoughts that arise from the losses and failures that we have already had in the past, and the present thoughts about what we lack, what we want to be and aren’t, etc., can cause sadness, disappointment and frustration to arise.

We all want to feel happy without having to make a tremendous effort to get, fight, acquire, protect, pretend, etc., and we can do it if we just stop doing what has us trapped in depression: believing our thoughts, feeding them , and obsessively review them until they generate destructive emotions.

The only thing we have to do is to stop struggling with that inner dialogue that tells us what we should be, do, or constantly judge us for not being good enough, successful, intelligent and so on. Stop listening, ignore it and let our minds rest in the stillness of being aware here and now.

At first that voice will intensify by wanting to be heard, only thoughts that arise out of habit, but as we ignore them these will become less frequent.

Instead of paying attention to them, we direct our mind to the sounds that surround us or to our breathing. Whatever is happening in the present, here and now, is an anchor for our mind to rest.

Stop identifying with depression and the thoughts that produce it, is the way to find peace of mind.

Sometimes it is very difficult not to let ourselves be carried away by thoughts and emotions, so a useful method is to focus our attention on the beneficial things and actions that other people are carrying out in the world, and to rejoice in the help they are giving to other humans or animals. Feeling empathy for others makes us feel good. Let’s try to focus on helping those around us.